The Integrity Group of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), also known as the G-5, yesterday failed to reveal their presidential candidate for the February election as expected.
The five PDP governors said they will never work for any opposition candidate in the presidential election but insisted that the party must do the needful before the general election.
The G-5, including Governor’s Nyesom Wike (Rivers), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), Samuel Ortom (Benue), Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu) and Seyi Makinde (Oyo), were expected to reveal their preferred presidential candidate on January 5 (yesterday) in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, during Makinde’s second term campaign.
But they failed to do so, giving fillip to reports that the governors are yet to reach a consensus on which candidate to support.
The governors had recently returned from a trip to London where they were said to have deliberated on which of the candidates to support among PDP’s Atiku Abubakar, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP).
LEADERSHIP had reported that amid threats of sanctions against them by the party’s national leadership, the governors said they cannot be intimidated.
While Wike and Makinde were said to have been disposed to Tinubu, Ortom was leaning towards Obi, whom he had openly endorsed.
LEADERSHIP further reported that Governors Ugwuanyi and Ikpeazu were not ready to support Tinubu for fear of backlash since Obi, who is from the South East as them, is also on the ballot.
The two Southeastern governors have remained silent, refusing to openly declare support for any of the candidates.
The G-5 governors had resolved not to work for Atiku’s presidential bid unless the PDP national chairman, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, a northerner, is replaced by a southerner for geo-political balancing of power.
Addressing a mammoth crowd at the flag-off campaign of Governor Seyi Makinde re-election bid in Ibadan, leader of the G5 governors, Wike, said Makinde will tell them who to vote at the presidential polls.
He urged the Oyo citizens to re-elect Makinde who he described as a leader who had performed excellently.
He said, “Vote for Governor Seyi Makinde, vote for all senatorial candidates, vote for all House of Assembly candidates, but the other one, Seyi will tell you”.
Also speaking, Ortom declared that the group will work for the party’s candidate in their states.
He however did not mention the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku. He said the group would work for all PDP candidates in this year’s general election.
According to Ortom, the G5 governors are committed members of PDP and are working round the clock to ensure that the party wins all elections in their respective states.
He said the G5 governors and other members of the party working with them in the integrity group are “committed members of the PDP in their various states” and would work to ensure that candidates of the party in their states are elected in the forthcoming polls.
The governor explained that the problem of the PDP at the national level is prolonged as a result of failure of the leadership of the party to deploy its internal conflict resolution mechanisms to settle issues that arose after the national convention.
He hailed Makinde’s commitment to development of Oyo State and expressed optimism that the people of the state would return him for a second term.
Governor Seyi Makinde had told party candidates that the group would never work for any opposition candidate in the presidential election, but insisted that the party must do the needful before the general election.
Bwala Insists Tinubu Met G-5 In London
Meanwhile, the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, yesterday insisted that the G-5 governors met with the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, in London.
Spokesman of the Atiku campaign, Daniel Bwala, who stated during an Arise TV morning programme, however, revealed that Tinubu turned down the demand of the G-5 governors.
This is coming a few days after Tinubu and G-5 governors had denied meeting in London.
But when asked about the meeting, Bwala said, “They met here in Kensington in London but the meeting deadlocked.
“One of the reasons that the meeting in London did not pull through is their alleged demand; the demand that the G-5 came with could not be accommodated given the fact that the damage that they thought they were capable of doing had not happened after five months. Atiku is still considered as leading.
“Now we have made concerted efforts to reconcile and the doors are still open. There is no part of the structure of this party that has not engaged with Wike and his group in a bid to reconcile. One of their demands is for Ayu to resign and we have gone through this path, why we think it can’t happen. Nobody can ask him to resign unless he chooses to resign; he was elected by the party and there are constitutional provisions and guidelines that led to his emergence as national chairman.
“That movement has not damaged us. It has not reduced our followership. In fact they have expanded beyond the number or nucleus of that campaign.
“And the more time went by, people have come to realise that the campaign is not about equity, justice and fairness but about interest aggregation and factoring.
“Even if you have an interest you can sit in a political party and negotiate. But this stop-Atiku-by-all-means target and agenda is not working,” he said.
He said despite the “masquerade dances, melodramatic events and flights around the world and meetings upon meetings” a projection by Thisday Newspaper showed that PDP is in the lead ahead of the polls.
“Maybe there is something about PDP which shows that its time has come and there is nothing you can do to stop it.”
He said there is no way Nigerians would go back to APC after all they have suffered in the last seven years.
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